Comments on: Rocky Mountain News Staffers Start Net Venture

By: Boulevards sells Denver.com domain in seven-figure deal - Silicon Valley 411 | SV411

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 21:52:53 +0000

[...] the time, Elliot’s Blog, a blog that focuses on domain name investing wrote, “Pulcrano’s acquisition of some of the best city .com Internet properties makes him the [...]

By: barbaraH

barbaraH — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:09:29 +0000

These guys can’t find another job out there? Well with all these great awards why not?
The RMN has been a one sided company all along, When they stood by and let there staff be kicked on national TV I lost all hope for them, what a lame company, I am not surprise they folded, no leadership big heads and amature photogs. go figure.

By: Jessica Bookstaff

Jessica Bookstaff — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:31:34 +0000

Dan may need to give us all some schooling on how to run a newspaper onine…at least a crash course to get us started. He understands the bridge rom old media to online. See Ron’s great article -http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2008/february.htm
So, when is the class sign-up???

By: Snoopy

Snoopy — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:04:33 +0000

Man these people sound like dinosaurs, who is going to pay for access to a site that doesn’t even exist, an even worse idea than printing the newspaper!

By: Riq Ghafoor

Riq Ghafoor — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:58:26 +0000

Big tides are supposed to lift all boats so in of this this are there better prospects for city/geo names in extensions like .info and .us or does the story ends with names like Denver.com and Seattle.com?

By: Ron Jackson

Ron Jackson — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:34:34 +0000

To dominate a niche you don’t need to be known by thousands – you just need to be a professional who can cover that niche better than anyone else. There are many commercial niches where there is no professional coverage now. A professional reporter-photographer team could slay most operators in currently underserved niches. I personally wouldn’t use a blog format as a start up today as I think the format is overdone now – I think the online magazine format is more eye appealing so stands out from the crowd more, plus has the advantage of being a fornat traditional advertisers are already familiar with.

There are very few businesses that are profitable right away, so it is true that if they have no capital to live on while they build it up they would need to do it in their spare time while earning a paycheck somewhere else. It could wind up being their ticket to freedom but you are quite right that many just have no interest in being their own boss.

By: Elliot Silver

Elliot Silver — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:18:11 +0000

@Ron – We all have an entrepreneurial mentality, and many other people don’t. Some people feel the need to work for a guaranteed paycheck, regardless of what they are doing. Setting up a blog might be good for the top 3-4 journalists that are known by thousands, but for some of the younger people or lesser known people, it might be difficult to make it profitable right away.

IMO, I would imagine Denver.com working with a few of the journalists on a full-time or freelance basis could be win/win.

By: Ron Jackson

Ron Jackson — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:15:52 +0000

@Jason wrote: “I hope the previous staff are all out setting up their own blogs just in case…”

This is in fact the way I think these diesplaced reporters and photographers from traditional media need to go. Rather than try to compete in the oversaturated and expensive to operate in category of general news, they should either individually or in small groups find special niches they are passionate about and become the authority site in that niche. Professional journalists could easily dominate underservered niches.

A small number of direct advertisers can earn the individual or a small group of partners a nice living if they do that. Far better than starving as part of a large group fruitlessly trying to do something in general news that other, better capitalized companies can easily do better. It only costs a few bucks for a domain name and hosting account and they have their own business with no one else to answer to. I think it is a no brainer for people with their skill sets but it hasn’t dawned on most of them yet.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:01:13 +0000

I hope they’re not stuck on that name InDenverTimes.com… :/ I’ve sent them some names I have that they can borrow, but I’d be _real_ surprised if they can make those subscriptions numbers… I hope the previous staff are all out setting up their own blogs just in case…

By: Elliot Silver

Elliot Silver — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:51:35 +0000

@Ahmed – Very true, but it sure is a good start.

By: AhmedF

AhmedF — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:50:25 +0000

A city.com is not the end-all-be-all of the world.

By: Rob Sequin

Rob Sequin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:00:53 +0000

Agree.

Especially when the Seattle paper’s domain is SeattlePI.com.

Right.

I’m sure they are drooling over Seattle.com.

Question is do they have the money to buy it?

By: Ron Jackson

Ron Jackson — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:56:07 +0000

I’ve always believed geodomains are the logical home for the next generation of local media outlets. It is tough to beat brands like Seattle.com and Denver.com. Dan’s portfolio is practically priceless given where things are headed now.

By: robb

robb — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:28:38 +0000

Too bad these folded newspaper don’t have the money to buy city domains, better for the domain owners to develop the sites themselves.

Don’t think the Denver group will be able to get 50k subscriptions in a month, why when people can get the info online. Have they factored in advertiser revenue from their possible website?

I think a lot of these reporters and staffers from folded newspapers will just end up doing the same thing but online for someone else. As an aside, a local newspaper in a nearby town of about 10k people just folded, cited the internet and economy as reasons.

Where will all the businesses who were advertising in these folded newspapers go now – lol.

By: Chris Brooks

Chris Brooks — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:13:15 +0000

These folks trying to reproduce the models that newspapers have tried (and failed at) for the last decade should read Clay Shirky’s latest missive: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

By: Rob Sequin

Rob Sequin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:50:00 +0000

Thanks Dan.

Great time to be in the Internet and domain business.

Small, medium and large businesses are all looking our way now.

By: Steve M

Steve M — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:32:55 +0000

I’ll be shocked if they get 50k actual PAID subs … which is a far cry from getting 50k people who SAY they’ll pay $4.99/mo (and even then … for how long?).

Not that Dan needs such advice from anyone … but this might be a opportunity to pick up some superb reporters at very affordable rates.

By: Dan Pulcrano

Dan Pulcrano — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:09:20 +0000

Rob,
You’ve always been a visionary. And my glasses say that things are about to make your investments pay off very soon.
Dan

By: Rob Sequin

Rob Sequin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:39:03 +0000

WOW! Great news for Dan. Congrats.

Where can I get those glasses that can see into the future?